Seedfork's blog: First tomato sprout

Much cooler today, rain tomorrow, 100 percent so they say!
I checked the top of the freezer today and I have my first four tomato sprouts, I guess that means the new gardening season is off to a fast start. Now wait a minute, I just put those up there two days ago, I can't have tomato sprouts in two days. Well, there is something sprouting in those containers, just a little too early to tell what. I'll leave the glass on them maybe all day tomorrow and see if any more sprout.
Still no sign of carrots, or lettuce in the garden. I have tried to keep the seed moist and after the rain tomorrow I should start to see some green sprouts.
Yesterday late, I planted a tray of coleus seed and a tray with two kinds of cosmos. I have them under lights.
Lots of new growth showing with the daylilies, the dormants and semi-dormants seem to be waking up with their pretty new green leaves. The evergreens look all ratty but the masses of limp leaves are giving way to new green ones starting to emerge, and each day the ratty leaves seem to get a bit longer.
I also noticed some amaryllis leaves starting to show, it won't be long before they will really start putting out some new leaves. The daffs have had a little growth spurt in the past two very warm days.
Still no seed racks at Lowe's. Dropped by next door to Tractor Supply and they did have out new Burpee seed racks, but my...Burpee really seems to have jacked up the prices on their seeds. I looked at a pack of white radish seeds, and just turned around and walked out.
I headed on over to the farmers co-op, they had sold out of some things and had not received a lot of stuff still. I said I would check back in a week or so. It was amazing though how much cheaper the seed were. An ounce of seeds was way cheaper that just a pack of seeds a Tractor Supply. So I think that is what I am going to start doing now that I have a separate refrigerator for
my bulbs and seeds, I am going to buy them by the oz. and split them into smaller packs and have them last for several years. I checked with the feed and seed closer to my house and they said it would be two weeks before they had anything in, they don't get in a hurry for anything there.
I had 3/4 of a bag of lime in the shed, and being it is scheduled to rain tomorrow I decided it would be a good time to spread it out. I know it really seemed to help my tomatoes last year, so I am doing it again this year. It is dolomite lime, so it has a lot of calcium in it and that I think helps to avoid blossom end rot. I took my potato hoe and dug the lime and the mulch into the soil the best I could, the mulch is so thick in the back bog bed I had to really dig down the full length of the tines to actually mix the lime into the soil.
Seeing the sprouts in my tomato cells made re realize that I did not even have one cold frame ready. So I dug out the plastic, filled the wood frame with finished compost, raked it out making a beautiful bed and now I am ready for those little seedlings once a few more of them poke their little heads up.
Today being Thursday, means tomorrow is leaf pickup day for the city, so I managed to make one trip out and got another full truck load of bagged leaves. I picked up one load yesterday. I go for a walk about three times a week now (when things are slow in the garden and there is not that much to do for exercise. I walk down across the dam between the two closest lakes, up the hill to the next dam and cross between those two lakes and them back across the third dam, (only one lake) and it is three miles from my drive and back. I found 24 bags of leaves as I was topping a hill, and returned with the truck after the walk, and extra bonus.
Anyhow I got all those emptied out and spread in the bog and now they are ready for the rain to pack them down.

( No account? Join now! )